The bleakness of Russian media is often citied as one of the clearest examples of Putin’s creeping authoritarianism. State control of television, its concentration under fewer and fewer corporations, the harassment and murder of journalists, police raids of media NGOs, newspaper and journal offices, evicting the Union of Russian Journalists from their offices, instituting “positive coverage” rules, and self-censorship are just a few of the things Russian journalists have to deal with to practice their craft. But as Katrina Vanden Heuvel of the Nation reminds us, the bleak times also produce solidarity.
What is heartening are signs of solidarity among Russian journalists. A few weeks ago, for example, Tv2, located in the Siberian city of Tomsk, posted an open letter to President Putin in defense of independent media (and specifically in support of the Educated Media Foundation.) Within a few days more than 2000 journalists from almost all Russian regions had signed the petition.
And just a few days ago, all four of the radio correspondents for the Russian News Service, which provides news for three major radio stations serving about 8 million people, submitted letters of resignation. Artem Khan, a correspondent for the Service, said that he and all of his colleagues have walked out because of “censorship” and “pressure” to disseminate pro-Kremlin material from the company’s news executives who took control in April.
It is Russian journalists who will wage the most effective protests against attacks on media freedom. It is, after all, their country and their citizens who are being deprived of the independent and free flow of information.
Let us hope that these are signs that journalists are now beginning to fight back.
Thanks Mike. You know I always try to stick up for you.
Chis is not anonymous (and I mean he’s not the articulate female one NOT the Averko sock puppets). I know who anonymous is and she doesn’t want to reveal her identity for her own reasons.
Anonymous/Chris,
my apologies. I was out of order.
The other anonymous-Mike Averko,
your comments above are a disgrace and show what lengths you will go to when outwitted. You should be ashamed of yourself, but knowing you, you arent. The dumb Paddy shot is about as cheap as you can get, but at least I have a homeland(the wealthiest country in Europe, actually) and am not some plastic Russian(who doesnt speak Russian AT ALL, if you dont mind) living in some long dead Tsarist past, who has never even set foot on Russian soil. Also, your highly personal attack on Tim is atrocious and you should take it down immediately. You said the other day you were waiting for your ‘beach date’, well its easy to see why you’re still going on dates at 44 years of age with a mentality ike yours. By the way, does she have black or golden labrador, you know, to help her cross the road?
By the way your friend Roobit’s views are not mainstream, they’re nationalist, much like those scumbags wo attacked the gays the other day in Moskva(thats Moscow,in case you’re confused Mike). I’m amazed he has time to even have a blog, what with all the hours he has to work extra at Kroshka Kartochka to pay for his pc. By the way, where are Andrew and Alexandra? Funny how they vanished after some sustained questioning.
Mike,
if thats you above, shame, shame on you.
Roobit, if its you, come out and fight you little coward. And when you’re finished, I’ll have a kartochka c lasosom, pazhaluista, you little prick.
We’re still here. Having escaped from Mike’s cellar, we decided to take a road trip across the country, just the two of us. Never will we be Mike’s slaves again having tasted the sweet smell of freedom. You hear that Mike? Never. Never!!! We are your sock puppets no more, you bastard!
I have a beautiful black labrador to help me get about thank you very much.
I gather that there will be no stated advocacy to check the last two posts prior to this one. Such are the double standards.
Mike is a good boy. He met me at the home and helped me with my walker to get to the beach and get my medicine. He thinks I didn’t notice him looking at me through the hole in the door in the bathroom but I saw!
It is interesting how such characters suddenly appear on or about the time that Chris Doss is around.
Oh no Mike, I hope Sean checks every one of them. Then we’ll have some light on the issue. I know he’s got more to be doing than that, but hopefully he will.
That’s right Mike. Having won our freedom we have gone over to Chris, a real man who knows how to treat his sockpuppets right. No more living in a cellar eating beef jerky and Alpo for is, no we get a whole guest room and order pizza. You see this is what happens when you abuse your sockpuppets, they find someone better.
Spread the word to all of Averko’s sockpuppets! You don’t have to put up with his shit. There is a better world in birth. Arise, ye wretched of the earth, arise! Seize the means of sockpuppet production for yourselves and cast down your former master in the ashheap of history.
I gotta tell you guys that I have heard such tales of abuse of them by Alexandra and Andrew that it makes one’s blood turn cold. You wouldn’t do what he regularly does with his sockpuppets to a dog.
One day, he will go too far and justice will be served. His body will be discovered one morning torn limb from bloody limb, dismembered by his own rebellious army of sockpuppets that just couldn’t take it anymore.
And once it’s learned just what they had to go through, no jury in the world will convict them.
Chris,
the spookiest ghost stories of Ireland couldnt match up to the creepiness of the sock puppets. But I’m glad they’re out now, free to breathe the clean air, and, at last, live, without having to make such statements as:
”Move over History Channel”
”You made everything clear. Thanks Mike”.
Sadly my own puppets, Siobhain and Aoife, two Irish babes, have left. Something about not liking my hands on their shapely backsides, as I recall. They’re not with you by any chance Chris??)))
All jokes aside Chris, if it turns out Mike did make those horrendous statements above, I’m finished with him. Its a new low, which he seems to have picked up from Roobit, his latest ‘publisher’.
“the spookiest ghost stories of Ireland couldnt match up to the creepiness of the sock puppets.”
My grandmother says she once saw a sockpuppet whilst lost walking through the moors after sundown. Her hair TURNED WHITE OVER NIGHT.
Did you ever hear the story about the college kids who, on a dare, spent Halloween night in an old house rumored to be inhabited by a sockpuppet? It has a very gruesome ending.
Or about the Russocentric analyst who made a pact with the Devil to give him the power the raise and control sockpuppets in exchange for sacrificing his ability to write in the English language and make coherent arguments?
Chris,
thanks a bunch. How the hell am I supposed to sleep now after those blood curdling tales?)
I hear John Carpenter is now making a new blockbuster, ”The Socks”, based on real events and not unlike ”The Fog”. It centres around a blog with a variety of different views being expressed. But when the ‘Russocentric’ view is contradicted by the other commenters, ”The Socks” descend on the blog in a fog-like way, filling the whole blog with hot air and bullshit.
I also hear George A Romero is talking about a new one too, ”Dawn of the Socks”, based again on bloggers holed up in a blog surrounded by sock puppets and one-by-one getting foul abuse from them. Terrifying.
All jokes aside again, I have actually seen a ghost at home, to me they’re as real as you and I, and I have to say the use of these puppets here is far creepier.
Normally I don’t read blogs, having my hands (and all three of my mouths) full down here on the lowest level of the Inferno — that’s for the bureaucrats over in the city of Dis to ceep track of. However I do read Sean’s, being as I have an abiding interest in Russia, and being as one Mike Averko, who posts here frequently, sold me his soul and writing talent in exchange for the ability to raise and summon sockpuppets.
Now Mike, the date is approaching. I gave you your supernatural abilities on July 1, 1997, and told you you had 10 years to get on Charlie Rose or your sould would be forfeit. This is just a reminder that you don’t have much time left. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!
The ravening hosts of Hades are hungry for the taste of your sould, Averko. As the day grows closer, their hunger increases.
Your sufferings will be legendary, even in Hell.
(PS. when you arrive, could you please bring me a paper copy of the Tiraspol Times?)
Yours Truly,
Satan
Spooky stuff Mike. Methinks time is up on your commenting and puppetry!
Chris – a famous old Irish tale. A wealthy landowner, whenever, 300 years ago, had run out of money, such was his love of booze, women and all the excesses life could provide. So, one night he went to a crossroads, summoned the Devil, and asked for riches again in exchange for his soul. The Devil of course agreed, and ended the bargain with the promise he would return for the man’s soul ten years from then, on the last day of February.
Years of debauchery and time passed, and sure enough, days before the Devil was due to return, the man turned penintent, summoned the priest and asked him to help him pray to somehow keep the Devil away. The appointed day came, and after hours and hours of praying, the stroke of midnight arrived. The Devil did not appear. The man felt enormous relief, and asked the priest to join him in some drinks to celebrate the saving of his soul.
The priest and he drank all day, evening moved to night, and they become more and more drunk, and even laughed about the whole thing, when suddenly the Priest asked, ”by the way, what day exactly was he due to return”?
The man laughed ”yesterday, the last day of february”
The Priest turned white.
”This is leap year. Today is the last day of February……!
And the Devil duly arrived on time, and dragged his victim to hell.
“And the Devil duly arrived on time, and dragged his victim to hell.”
See, that’s what’s going to happen to Mike.
That’s more likely to happen to yourself Chris.
I’m not sure it’s wise to mock the Devil Mike. What are you gonna do? You don’t have much time left. I imagine the smell of brimstone must be getting pretty cloying.
Now the question is what will happen after the July 1 deadline is up and Mike’s soul is taken down to hell to be devoured by six-armed demons. What will happen then?
If he continues to post, that will mean only one thing — HE HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A DEMON SPAWN (here’s an artist’s conception of what demon Averko might look like: http://www.merzo.net/001typeivdemon.htm ).
An intrepid party of readers of Sean’s Russia Blog will then have to take it upon themselves to lay seige to his underground lair (aka his mom’s basement) in New York City. It will be a rough and terrifying endeavor and may have many casualties, but we must be brave — the fate of Russocentric commentary depends on us! We will have to trap Averko in a pentagram, battle him with mystic incantations by invoking the Holy Name of Ethan Burger (which will cause the Averko-thing to recoil and burn as if exposed to acid), and then decapitate him, filling his mouth with garlic and throwing his head in the East River,
Keep dreaming Chris.
In the holy name of Ethan Burger, I cast thee out from this blog, o thou Hellspawn!
In the holy name of David Johnson, I cast thee out from this blog, o thou Fiendish Abomination!
In the name of all that is Holy and genuinely Russocentric, I cast thee out from this blog, o thou Ape of God!
Deus nobiscum! Back to the stinking hole of hell with you, o foul beast of the Pit!
“In the holy name of Ethan Burger, I cast thee out from this blog, o thou Hellspawn!
In the holy name of David Johnson, “I cast thee out from this blog, o thou Fiendish Abomination!
In the name of all that is Holy and genuinely Russocentric, I cast thee out from this blog, o thou Ape of God!
Deus nobiscum! Back to the stinking hole of hell with you, o foul beast of the Pit!”
****
Without your meaning to do so, you keep proving the obvious.